Beaker with Lions (Hedwig Beaker)

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This is a typical example of a puzzling group of glasses known as Hedwig beakers. They are unlike any other medieval objects of glass or rock crystal from the Islamic world, Byzantium, or western Christendom. These colorless or nearly colorless glasses are decorated in slant-cut relief with a variety of motifs, including lions, eagles, griffins, and the tree of life. The group is named after Saint Hedwig of Silesia (d. 1243), who is traditionally associated with three of the beakers. Most of the complete Hedwig beakers were found in church treasuries, and fragments of six others were uncovered at archeological sites, all in Europe. The earliest datable examples belong to the 12th or early 13th century. Scholars have argued variously that the beakers were made in the medieval Islamic world, Byzantium, and southern Italy. However, there is no decisive evidence in favor of any one of these locations.

Description

Primary Description:

Almost colorless, but with brownish tinge that is often likened to smoky topaz; small bubbles. Blown; slant- and linear-cut. Beaker shaped like truncated cone. Rim plain and rounded; wall is thick and tapering; base is in form of flange with sloping top, vertical side, and four equidistant notches; underside of base is concave and has pontil mark. Decoration consists of single continuous register extending from top to bottom of wall, divided at top into six shallow slant-cut facets, four of which are vertical and relatively large, while two are triangular and small. The register contains two lions in prominent relief and, above their backs, two kite-shaped motifs, also in relief. Each lion occupies two vertical facets, and each kite-shaped motif is contained in one of the triangular facets. Lions are virtually identical; they walk, one in front of the other, from right to left, with bodies in profile and heads full-face. Each lion has right foreleg extended, and its long S-shaped tail is raised. Head has two circular slant-cut eyes, one projecting ear, and snout with simple linear-cut details; left shoulder is also slant-cut; mane, neck, chest, and parts of back, limbs, and tail are covered with triangular and quadrilateral groups of parallel cuts; claws are indicated by short linear cuts; tassel at end of tail is crosshatched. Kite-shaped motifs are also very similar. Each contains slant-cut equilateral triangle with apex touching top of kite and base extending from side to side. Interior of triangle is divided by three linear cuts into pentagon at center and one small triangle at each angle

Decorative and utilitarian works from the Corning Museum of Glass, surveying 35 centuries of glass-making technology and stylistic developments from ancient Egyptian, Roman, Islamic, and Asian cultures to contemporary American and European examples.
The works were selected by Corning Museum staff members Dwight P. Lanmon, director and curator of European glass; David B. Whitehouse, curator of ancient and Islamic glass; Jane Shadel Spillman, curator of American glass; and Susanne K. Frantz, curator of 20th-century glass.